Official: State of Elanthia
(I would delete and move to GS News Folder, but alas, such things are not allowed.)
State of Elanthia Notes · on 6/16/2004 3:47:17 PM 630
I realize players have already posted notes from my State of Elanthia ... but I thought I should post my own anyway. Here they are!
RELEASE SCHEDULE STRATEGY
We make our decisions for development based on four factors:
#1. We wanna build it
* We see a mechanical need in the game that we want to fill.
* We see a community need in the game that we want to fill.
* We already started the system and just want to finish it up. (Why waste the development time?)
* We just like the idea of building it, cause it would be fun.
#2. We need to balance the game. (Generally this isn't very popular.)
#3. We promised it already and we want to make good on our promise.
#4. Cause players are asking for it. But a couple things to note about that:
* Players don't agree on what we should work on.
* Players change their minds as their needs change.
* ... but we do our best.
SO WHAT DO YOU WANT?
So what is it that you want? Here are the results of all three of the priority polls. The results here have been weighted.
1.Develop non-combat experience-gain opportunities
2.Develop spells to fill gaps in the level 21-50 range of existing spell lists
3.Fix/enhance spells in existing spell lists
4.Develop guild skills for the professions with fewer than six existing guild skills
5.Develop spells to fill gaps in the level 1-20 range of existing spell lists
6.Develop new societies
7.Develop Paladins (including 1 spell lists to level 20)
8.Develop more undead hunting areas and creatures
9.Fix/enhance existing societies
10.Develop Monks (including 2 spell lists to level 20 and unarmed combat)
11.Develop more Premium benefits
12.Develop Savants (including 3 spells lists to level 20)
13.Develop more hunting areas (and creatures) for levels 80-100
14.Develop more roleplaying events
15.Develop more hunting areas (and creatures) for levels 21-40
16.Develop more artisan skills
17.Develop more hunting areas (and creatures) for levels 61-80
18.Develop more town systems and town services
19.Develop more roleplaying systems
20.Develop more hunting areas (and creatures) for levels 41-60
21.Develop more combat maneuvers
22.Develop unarmed combat despite the status of Monk development
23.Develop Breakage
24.Develop more hunting areas (and creatures) for levels 1-20
25.Develop more festivals
An important note: please realize that if something is low on this priority list, it doesn't mean that we won?t work on it immediately. It's fairly likely that players are currently satisfied with the status of a thing, and expect us to keep up our efforts at the same rate. You have to read these sorts of polls with a practiced eye or they may mislead you. For instance, it's very likely that alternate experience gain is taking #1 because we haven't clearly defined what that is.
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WE WANNA BUILD IT
New Society
* When? 2005 or 2006
* Why? Because the current societies are not appropriate to all character types. If a player doesn't want to play that they have a crusade against undead, and if they take to heart the Faustian bargain that is supposed to discourage players from going to CoL (ha!), then neither society is appealing. We would like to see new societies that expanded Rping in all sorts of new directions beyond good and evil.
Bounties
* When? RSN
* What is this? This is a system to give players alternative reasons to hunt. For example you may be given an assignment, such as "retrieve a super cool item which was stolen by an evil goblin in DragonFang forest." Then it would be your job to track down the goblin and retrieve the item.
* Why? In addition to providing alternate reasons for hunting, this system should provide some short-term achievable goals with fun rewards including: Silver, Exp, and potentially items.
Quests
* When? 2005
* Why? Longer term achievable goals that have rewards. Roleplay. Alternative activities. They add to the culture of the game. And they're fun.
Town Systems and Services
* When? HSN, 2005
* Why? The HSN town systems and services will be release because we already promised them and because we're mostly done working on them. From the player survey it's clear that players have become more content with the state of towns, so there will be less focus on town systems in the future. However, we will not abandon them. There are some minor issues towns will need and players will desire.
Premium Benefits
* When? HSN, RSN, and 2005
* What is this? The types of things you may see are: Long Term Incentives, Homes Rewrite, More features to the Island, and other things we're not ready to discuss.
* Why? We want our Premium members to see value in the service.
Combat Maneuvers
* When? HSN, RSN, and 2005
* Why? Because we promised them, and because many of them are already done.Additionally, as we focus more on spells, we need to continue to provide squares with development -- and combat maneuvers are a great way to do that.
EXP and Rewards
* When? HSN, and 2005
* What is this? This is a vague concept that may cover more than one system. The first of those will be released during HSN. Short-duration weekly experience multipliers will be released to help the casual player - this came from player suggestions on the forums several months ago.
* Why? Because we recognize that players want to feel like they're making more progress with better rewards.
* By the way, I told a joke during my seminar here about how we wouldn't admit our mistakes. I hope everyone understands that this was - a joke. We stand by our decision to modify experience for GS4. The weekly experience multipliers that you will hear more about later is intended to improve the situation for casual players. Our calculations show that it won't have a significant affect on hard core players ... and thus shouldn't throw off the pace of advancement.
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BALANCE THE GAME
Damage and Repair
* When? 2005
* What is this? Breakage is being revised to be less catastrophic.
Society Changes
* When? 2005
* What is this? Society changes will include a review of all society signs and symbols. This is required as a followup to the various Growing Pains and GS4 design changes.
* Why? We have stated that the societies are not a requirement, and have designed creatures accordingly, but the reality is that virtually everyone is in a society. We will be looking at changes to societal abilities and possibly changes to creatures to reflect this fact.
Stealth Revisions
* When? 2005
* What is this? An overhaul of the current stealth mechanics, including hiding, stalking, sneaking, unhiding, and searching, for players and creatures alike. The new system will allow for greater differentiation between various training paths, and will bring consistency to the various related actions. The target is to have single trainers be effective vs approximately 50% of the creature types, double trainers vs another 30-40%, and triplers be effective against the top echelon. Modifiers for race, terrain, climate, armor, and a variety of other factors will be applied. The current rogue professional bonus will be greatly decreased, putting more of an emphasis on training choices.
* Why? The current design is too much of an either/or design, where it is either a challenge for moderate trainers and easy for high trainers, or hard for high trainers and impossible for everyone else. The various actions also inconsistently apply modifiers, and we?re working to shift away from the professional bonuses.
Spell Fixes for Critters
* When? HSN (We hope)
* What is this? Restoring the ability for creatures to cast and spawn with spells active (AS/DS/TD boosters, etc.)
* Why? This creature feature was disabled at the onset of GS4 due to schedule constraints, but it is something that we have always intended to be part of the game.
Death Penalties
* When? HSN
* What is this? We've taken a lot of the feedback from the forums following our poll on death penalties a couple of months ago. We think we've come up with a solution that will work.
* Why? Death needs to have some sting so that people attempt to avoid death instead of using it as a free trip to town.
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WE ALREADY PROMISED
Paladins
* When? RSN
* What is this? Paladins will include 1 spell list of 20+ spells.
Monks and Unarmed Combat
* When? 2005
* What is this? Monks will include two spell lists and an unarmed combat system
Savants
* When? AFTER 2005
* What is this? Savants will include three spell lists, I believe.
Artisan Skills
* When? RSN, 2005
* What is this? Fixes to forging (after HSN, before RSN). And new skills coming starting in 2005. Tailoring will be the first.
Roleplaying Systems
* When? HSN, RSN
* We will be releasing all the systems that are currently in the works. After this there will be less focus on roleplaying systems, though we won't be abandoning them entirely.
Elven Cultures Document
* When? 2005
* What is this? Our previous elven cultures doc was lost. (Honest!) We need to start another one.
Friend or Foe
* When? 2005
* What is this? This system introduces consequences into the hunting cycle. It makes hunting more interesting and provides roleplaying opportunities during the hunt.
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AT YOUR REQUEST
Spells (1-20, 20-50, and improvements)
* When? HSN, RSN, 2005
* Currently we have 32 unreleased spells ... over 20 of those gaps were "opened" when GS4 launched.
* By the end of the year we will have filled 8 of the gaps. Plus we will have created 20+ paladin spells.
* Many spells this year will be improved and enhanced.
* There will be a great deal of focus in 2005 on spells. But don't expect greater demon summoning yet.
Alternate Experience Gain
* When? The first test of alternate experience gain activities will be released during HSN this year. If it goes well, we will see more during 2005.
* Although this won by a landslide in terms of player's requests on priorities, this was likely because the concept hasn't been formally discussed and everyone seems to have a different idea on what this would be. Our first test of alternate experience gain should get us all more on the same page and we'll be discussing it at length here in the forums. After that, we'll be working on more similar systems during 2005.
Guild Skills
* When? Lockmastery (in testing in Plat now). Skills for non-square professions beginning in 2005.
* Start posting your ideas for them in your profession folders.
More Creatures and Hunting Areas
* When? 2005
* We will begin working on creatures in a variety of levels depending on needs from town to town. Please note that not all towns are not intended to be FULL SERVICE, so the entire range of creatures will not be available at each town. However, we will be fleshing some towns out and filling in gaps.
Melissa
"Philosophers and ploughmen; Each must know his part; To sow a new mentality; Closer to the heart" - Rush
This message was originally posted in Discussions with Simutronics, Announcements. To discuss the above follow the link below.
[Edited on 6-17-2004 by Fallen]
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